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Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz’s mining company BSG Resources (BSGR) has voluntarily entered administration to protect it from legal disputes related to the Simandou project in Guinea. Business advisory firm BDO said the Royal Court of Guernsey had appointed two of its representatives as joint administrators on 6 March. “Our primary objective is to return BSGR to solvency and to ensure that all creditors will be paid in full.

German engineering and services company Bilfinger SE has agreed to pay a $32m fine to resolve charges that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by bribing Nigerian government officials. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) charged Bilfinger with violating and conspiring to violate the FCPA anti-bribery provisions. The payments made by Bilfinger were intended to obtain and retain contracts for the $387m Eastern Gas Gathering System project. According to court documents, from late 2003 to June 2005, Bilfinger conspired with Willbros Group, its joint venture partner on the project, to make corrupt payments totalling more than $6m to Nigerian government officials to assist in obtaining and retaining contracts on the scheme.

Foreign donors have warned the Tanzanian government that it must take stronger action in fighting public corruption and improving governance, especially in the energy, mining and health sectors. Swedish ambassador Lennarth Hjelmåker told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview in Dar es Salaam that “there has been stagnation in the fight against corruption, including a lack of movement on specific anti-corruption cases in key sectors like health, the port and energy”. Hjelmåker chairs a group of donors made up of the African Development Bank, Canada, Denmark, the European Commission, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and the World Bank that have committed $560m in general budget support – 5% of the total budget – to Tanzania this year.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on 8 June announced that Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) had agreed to pay nearly $6.5m to settle charges that it violated US securities laws by failing to register bonds sold to Ethiopians in the US to fund construction of the 6GW Grand Renaissance Dam.The SEC said EEP had held a series of public roadshows in major cities across the US and marketed the bonds on the website of the Ethiopian embassy as well as through radio and television advertising aimed at Ethiopians living in the US.

Former senior Bechtel executive Asem Elgawhary has been accused in a Maryland court of taking some $5m in kickbacks from power companies in exchange for preferential treatment on $2bn worth of contracts with an Egyptian electricity company. This was all concealed from his employer. Elgawhary, in the eight-count indictment filed on 10 February, is accused of mail fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to launder money and interference with administration of internal revenue laws. According to the document Elgawhary “used his position… as general manager of a power generation company to solicit and obtain millions of dollars of kickbacks for his personal benefit from US and foreign power companies that were attempting to secure lucrative contracts to perform power-related services.

Former SNC-Lavalin executive Riadh Ben Aissa in August signed a plea deal in Switzerland that could lead to his extradition to Canada, where the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have charges against him (AE 271/20, 253/25, 249/20). He is also facing charges for money laundering, fraud and corruption in Switzerland, where he has been held since his 2012 arrest. Ben Aissa is tied to some $160m in bribes paid to Saadi Qadhafi, son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, in exchange for contracts. Ben Aissa is also alleged to have been part of a plan to smuggle Saadi out of Libya.

Israeli-French mining entrepreneur Beny Steinmetz has launched a case in London’s High Court against his former public relations adviser FTI Consulting, naming individuals such as former UK minister Lord Mark Malloch Brown (MMB) and business magnate George Soros. In court documents, Steinmetz’s company BSG Resources (BSGR) details how FTI was instructed to defend its interests when it was facing “untrue and damaging” allegations over a mining project in Guinea, but “from the moment MMB joined FTI [in September 2010 as Europe, Middle East and Africa chairman], FTI was in serious breach of its contractual and fiduciary duties to BSGR, including to act in its best interests”.

African Petroleum Corporation has applied for a listing on Oslo’s junior Axess market, following the appointment of new management in recent months. Controversial former chairman Frank Timis stepped down in October. “Due to historical events related to other listed companies where he has been involved, Mr Timis will not be employed by the company nor hold board positions nor play any governance role going forward,” the company said. Before founding African Petroleum, Timis was chief executive of Regal Petroleum, whose directors were fined £600,000 in 2009, after a Financial Services Authority investigation, for misleading investors on the viability of an oil well in the Aegean Sea in 2003. African Petroleum and its sister company International Petroleum listed on Australia’s National Stock Exchange in 2010 after the main Australian Stock Exchange declined to have Timis involved.

The World Bank Group (WBG) on 22 August debarred Slovenia’s Flycom for making corrupt payments in connection with a project in Democratic Republic of Congo. The infrastructure services company was debarred for 18 months from working for the WBG and four other major multilaterals for engaging in corrupt practices linked to the Southern Africa Power Market Project.

Local community groups have reached agreement with the developers of the Kinangop wind park in the Rift Valley following the latest protests over compensation and health risks. Since construction of the 60.8MW project began in July last year, Kinangop’s development has been dogged by protests from local people who say they were not properly consulted over the project development and that compensation provisions are insufficient.

Senior officials and some notable international investors are optimistic that Egypt’s upstream sector is back on track, but this does not mean that some casualties have not been left by the wayside. The announcement of a new licensing round and the prospect of others later this year is the latest indication of the opportunities now on offer. Field developments are under way on and offshore, but Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) has not paid back arrears owed to international oil companies (IOCs) as quickly as it said it would, and a number of IOCs have suffered because of this.

Deep-water drilling contractor Seadrill Partners said on 3 October it plans to contest a force majeure notice received from Tullow Ghana for a drilling contract for the West Leo rig. The ultra-deep-water semisubmersible has most recently been in use on the TEN development project, which started up in August 2016. Further drilling on TEN has been suspended until the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea rules in a dispute over the maritime border, expected late next year and Tullow and partners have not yet received approval for the Greater Jubilee full field development plan, so further drilling is not currently possible.

Even in a country that has become accustomed to scandal and incompetence at the highest levels of government, the sudden “strategic redeployment” of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene on 9 December caused public outrage and market turbulence. Nene was replaced by unknown backbencher David van Rooyen, a man with no experience of national government. The rand fell to more than R16 to the dollar, South African government bond yields spiked, and equity in South African banks took a hammering, in what one banking source described to African Energy as the biggest domestic economic shock to hit the country since the end of apartheid rule in 1994.

The Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (FEACC) has announced the 10 May arrest of 13 high-level government officials on charges of corruption. Those arrested include Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority director-general (with ministerial rank) Melaku Fenta, his deputy, Gebrewahid Woldegiorgis, and the authority’s chief prosecutor, Eshetu Semayat. Local media reports say some businessmen have also been arrested as part of the FEACC investigation, including KK Trading’s Ketema Kebede, Intercontinental Addis Hotel owner Simachew Kebede and Netsa Trading owner Nega Egziabher.

South Africa’s controversial Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Amendment Bill is due to be returned to the minerals portfolio committee in early May, amid hopes that long-running uncertainty about the legal framework for exploration and production might finally be resolved. Concerns have focused on plans to transfer authority over the processing and administration of exploration and production rights from the regulatory Petroleum Agency SA to the Department of Mineral Resources’ regional managers, as well as a vague provision giving the state a 20% free carried interest in all new exploration and production rights.